This article deals with the Flemish cult-writer J.M.H. Berckmans (1953-2008). In contrastto the existing attention for the marginal existence of the author or the influence of jazz-musicon his writing, my analysis will focus on the author’s articulation of the theme ofmadness. Relying on methodological insights of discourse analysis, and the theory of posturelittéraire in particular, i.e. the way in which the author himself creates an image of thewriting subject J.M.H. Berckmans through the use of interviews in popular magazines likeHumo and through his (auto)fictional oeuvre, brings to the fore a complex functioning ofmadness. I will argue that next to granting the author authority and credibility to writeabout madness as he emphasizes his own madness, madness also serves as the polar oppositeof the lucidity of the writing process itself and the reading strategy the author suggests.Berckmans uses the popular image of the manic-depressive and the schizophrenic tostrengthen this trichotomy while employing the discursive possibilities of interviews andfiction. In addition, Berckmans creates a profile of his reading public as a ‘dumb’ audienceand emphasizes underestimation as an essential part of his literary posture.
